• mild spoilers -

There is what I consider a creamy centre of good in this film, surrounded - almost terminally - by crummy beginning and end. I say almost because the little that is good is worth getting to.

First, Statham can act. It got to the point where I was riveted by what he was going through and thought, if he never breaks out into a tactical fighter, so be it, I watched him play a dramatic role. Who knew?

But, the promotional image for the film betrays no secret - his strength is his fight skills. It is what it is, and he delivers with a few finely shot scenes of abject mayhem.

The nugget - or, I should probably say, nougat - of goodness is this guy's internal struggle with gambling. One particular sequence was utterly believable, gut-wrenching, and altogether too familiar to anyone remotely experienced with the tragedy of gambling addiction. Add to this the other lost soul, and here we have two people searching for salvation and finding it, in each other. Yeah, they save each other's lives, physically...but it's much more than that.